Nomadic Backpacker gets 100 hits in a day
May 31 2021
Today was a momentous day. At 17:23 on May 31 2021 my blog received a total of 100 unique user hits for the day.
Nomadic Backpacker is less than 2 years old. My goal for 2021 was to reach 100 unique user hits on any one day by years end. I have achieved that after just 5 months of 2021. And really, I haven't been close to 100. Averaging 30 to 50 hits a day.
Today it all came together. Yes, I have checked for bot hits. These come in massive spikes of 19, all from one place with a 100% bounce rate. There are no bot hits. The hits appeared steadily throughout the 24 hour period. In fact, I ended the day on 103.
My Google Analytics runs from midnight to midnight using GMT. That is 6 pm Guatemala time. Guatemala is where I'm at right now. In Quetzaltenango, aka Xela. My 99th country. That's 92 UN listed countries plus 7 others I think worthy to be on my list.
Blogging is not just about content. Sure you need great content but you need great SEO, you need social media, you need tenacity and self-belief. If you can't SEO, then your great content is for nothing. If your content is crap, Google ain't gonna give you more than a passing glance. If you use black-hat techniques on your blog, Google will penalise you.
If you upload 20MB photos, pages ain't gonna load very fast, people will get bored waiting,
I have refused to cheat! I have worked my ass off on my blog. Yes, I use Weebly. I ignored those who said I needed WordPress. Weebly is not the most efficient of platforms in that almost nothing is automated. Each post takes an amazing amount of time. But it works!
Next posts, previous posts and related posts are all manually done.
I spent an insane amount of hours tweaking the Weebly code to get it looking the best I could. The fonts, font size, letter spacing, line height, spacing and borders. My theme is very much bastardised.
In much the same way that Eddy Merckx would climb off in the middle of Paris Roubaix to adjust his saddle height by 1mm, I tweaked the font size, 1 pixel at a time. Visual appearance is everything. Attention to detail is everything.
In fact, it is such that I have achieved a sense of contentment in that I have not adjusted any coding in months.
I double-check all links, yeah, some still get through my stringent cross-checking, it's a fact of life.
Images and text must not overshoot the page. The list is long!
The travel blogging world is over-saturated with blogs. Bloggers fight every day to work with Google's ever-changing algorithm. Keywords and all that shit.
You know what? I don't even bother with that.
Why? It takes me so much time to collect the content, to edit it all, to write it up. I do not have time to change keywords on 300 plus pages. I have one technique I use. And it basically sticks 2 fingers at Google. And it works however many times they change things.
Getting my blog out there is the biggest hurdle. Twitter is my GoTo social media platform. It was suggested that I post my blogs on ex-pat sites for the places I am in. This works well! Instagram is just a waste of time.
Constantly producing content that is real and personal has been the way forward. I am slowly getting an audience.
What have I got to do so people stop and read mine rather than 1 of the other 6 million other blogs out there? It's a huge ask! It has to be something special.
The way forward is to keep on doing what I am doing. Blog traffic is universally down yet I have managed to keep it going and hit this magical milestone.
A big thank you to all my ardent followers and fans. Loads more content to come so stay tuned! XXX
Today it all came together. Yes, I have checked for bot hits. These come in massive spikes of 19, all from one place with a 100% bounce rate. There are no bot hits. The hits appeared steadily throughout the 24 hour period. In fact, I ended the day on 103.
My Google Analytics runs from midnight to midnight using GMT. That is 6 pm Guatemala time. Guatemala is where I'm at right now. In Quetzaltenango, aka Xela. My 99th country. That's 92 UN listed countries plus 7 others I think worthy to be on my list.
Blogging is not just about content. Sure you need great content but you need great SEO, you need social media, you need tenacity and self-belief. If you can't SEO, then your great content is for nothing. If your content is crap, Google ain't gonna give you more than a passing glance. If you use black-hat techniques on your blog, Google will penalise you.
If you upload 20MB photos, pages ain't gonna load very fast, people will get bored waiting,
I have refused to cheat! I have worked my ass off on my blog. Yes, I use Weebly. I ignored those who said I needed WordPress. Weebly is not the most efficient of platforms in that almost nothing is automated. Each post takes an amazing amount of time. But it works!
Next posts, previous posts and related posts are all manually done.
I spent an insane amount of hours tweaking the Weebly code to get it looking the best I could. The fonts, font size, letter spacing, line height, spacing and borders. My theme is very much bastardised.
In much the same way that Eddy Merckx would climb off in the middle of Paris Roubaix to adjust his saddle height by 1mm, I tweaked the font size, 1 pixel at a time. Visual appearance is everything. Attention to detail is everything.
In fact, it is such that I have achieved a sense of contentment in that I have not adjusted any coding in months.
I double-check all links, yeah, some still get through my stringent cross-checking, it's a fact of life.
Images and text must not overshoot the page. The list is long!
The travel blogging world is over-saturated with blogs. Bloggers fight every day to work with Google's ever-changing algorithm. Keywords and all that shit.
You know what? I don't even bother with that.
Why? It takes me so much time to collect the content, to edit it all, to write it up. I do not have time to change keywords on 300 plus pages. I have one technique I use. And it basically sticks 2 fingers at Google. And it works however many times they change things.
Getting my blog out there is the biggest hurdle. Twitter is my GoTo social media platform. It was suggested that I post my blogs on ex-pat sites for the places I am in. This works well! Instagram is just a waste of time.
Constantly producing content that is real and personal has been the way forward. I am slowly getting an audience.
What have I got to do so people stop and read mine rather than 1 of the other 6 million other blogs out there? It's a huge ask! It has to be something special.
The way forward is to keep on doing what I am doing. Blog traffic is universally down yet I have managed to keep it going and hit this magical milestone.
A big thank you to all my ardent followers and fans. Loads more content to come so stay tuned! XXX